Spray Deposition of Highly Transparent, Low-Resistance Networks of Silver Nanowires over Large Areas

A method to produce scalable, low‐resistance, high‐transparency, percolating networks of silver nanowires by spray coating is presented. By optimizing the spraying parameters, networks with a sheet resistance of Rs ≈ 50 Ω □−1 at a transparency of T = 90% can be produced. The critical processing parameter is shown to be the spraying pressure. Optimizing the pressure reduces the droplet size resulting in more uniform networks. High uniformity leads to a low percolation exponent, which is essential for low‐resistance, high‐transparency films. Nanowire networks are promising candidates for use as transparent electrodes. Here spray casting of networks over large areas is described. When optimized, these networks display transparency of 90% for sheet resistance of 50 Ω □−1. The resistance of networks displaying 90% transparency is found to scale strongly with the network non‐uniformity.